Schwarzenegger Pulling Right to Center: Margaret Carlson

In one of his last significant acts as California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger backed Proposition 14, an “open primary” initiative that California voters passed
last June. Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

May 18 (Bloomberg) -- In one of his last significant acts
as California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger backed Proposition
14, an “open primary” initiative that California voters passed
last June. California has one of the nation’s most politically
polarized state legislatures and congressional delegations. The
open primary has the potential to alter that.

In an open primary, all candidates compete in a single
preliminary contest, with the top two vote-getters, regardless
of party, going on to compete in the general election. Instead
of trying to consolidate their party base, candidates have an
incentive to appeal to a broader group of voters, all of whom
are free to cast a primary vote. In a solidly Republican
district, for example, Republicans might claim first and second
place in the primary, but the more moderate of the two
candidates would have an advantage by appealing to Independents
and Democrats in the general election, a point that might also
affect primary voters’ calculations.

The first of these jungle primary free-for-alls took place
yesterday in a special election to choose a successor to U.S.
Representative Jane Harman, a Democrat who retired in February
from the Los Angeles seat she had held for 16 years. Democrats
have an 18-point registration edge in the district, and five
Democrats competed in the primary along with six Republicans,
three Independents, a Libertarian and a Peace and Freedom
candidate.

Crowded Field

For some candidates, standing out in such a crowded field
required unusual measures. Democrat Dan Adler, who balanced an
endorsement from former Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck with one
from former Disney Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, ran
ads so peculiar they went viral. (In one, filmed at a dry
cleaner, Adler establishes ethnic solidarity with the store’s
Korean owner on the grounds that, as a Jew, Adler is a minority
-- and his wife is Asian.) A recent debate looked like open-mike night: each candidate was allotted one minute to make a
case on issues ranging from terrorism to sex education.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Secretary of State
Debra Bowen, both moderate Democrats, led throughout the race.
In a surprise, conservative Republican businessman and Tea Party
candidate Craig Huey looks to have squeaked past Bowen into the
general election, scheduled for July 12. But with almost 10,000
mail-in, provisional and damaged ballots yet to be counted in a
low turnout contest, the results might change.

In the general election, Hahn will be a favorite. She was
born in the proverbial smoke-filled room, the daughter of Los
Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and the sister of James
Hahn, a former mayor of Los Angeles. She gathered the
endorsements of establishment Democrats, labor unions and the
Los Angeles Times.

Republican Boon

Schwarzenegger and other moderate Republicans are hoping
the new system will be a boon to the GOP, which lost all eight
statewide races last year even as Republicans swept to victory
across the country. To win their respective Republican
primaries, gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and Senate
candidate Carly Fiorina tacked to the right on abortion, health
care, taxes and immigration. (Ronald Reagan might have serious
trouble winning a Republican-only primary in the Golden State
today; after all, he raised taxes.) Having moved to the right to
win over conservatives, Whitman and Fiorina found they couldn’t
get back to the white stripe in the middle of the road. Their
opponents, Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, were both
vulnerable. Boxer won handily by 10 points, Brown by 13.

If the open primary idea spreads, it could help put a brake
on the GOP’s rightward lurch outside California as well. Many
Congressional Republicans fear that if they vote to raise the
debt limit, they will earn themselves a primary challenge from
the right. Even U.S. House Speaker John Boehner isn’t immune to
the threat.

Good With Bad

Reforms may throw out some good with the bad. For instance,
party labels, especially when preceded by an adjective like
“progressive” or “Tea Party,” convey a wealth of information
to the casual voter. Democratic political consultant Garry South
sees some potential for mischief in open primaries that do away
with party identifications on the ballot. “A Democrat might try
to pass himself off as having no party preference to get an
advantage in a Republican-leaning district, or vice versa,” he
says. “He’d be called out for that during the campaign, of
course, but low-information voters may not realize that when
they go into the voting booth.”

Compared with continued polarization and the collapse of
the political middle, that seems a minor threat. Moderates
should get another boost from California’s new bipartisan
redistricting commission, which is likely to redraw district
lines to soften the hyper-partisan edges that both parties have
gerrymandered onto the map.

Up in Harman’s old office this week, her former chief of
staff, John Hess, was overseeing the final emptying of desks,
scrubbing of hard drives, and painting of walls. With Harman’s
tenure over, another moderate appears bound to move into her
office. This time, it won’t be a moderate Republican, as
Schwarzenegger had envisioned when he backed open primaries.
Next time, it just might be.

(Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How
George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White
House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News
columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)